TSO explains Bastion mode. Everything you'll need to know for 0.5.8

[Fog_Battleship_Tosa]

I have graciously toiled away for hours in the training room on 0.5.8 just so that the some questions can be answered about this long awaited game mode. I also had to rewrite it because I didn't have any backups. If you have anything you want tested before july 4th 2016, ask in the comments and I will see what I can do.

 

Bastion mode. 

These guns aren't for looks

What Is Bastion Mode?

 

Bastion mode is a new game mode in World of Warships that was introduced in the 0.5.8 patch.  The bastion mode is similar to a domination logic game, but with some very noticeable differences in how the capping mechanics work as well as what the rewards for claiming a cap are.

 

Capping Mechanics in Bastion Mode:

 

I'll start this guide with the objective of winning a match. As with any match, there are four victory states. One of them is to get 1000 tickets for your team. Like domination modes, this is done by capturing points.

 a typical bastion match

 

In bastion mode, there are three to four capture points depending on the map.The above image shows the locations of the capture points on the Atlantic map. These points are in the same general location as in a domination match on the same map, but in bastion they are numbered 1 through 4 instead of A through D. A captured point gives 3 tickets every 4 seconds. This is where similarities between bastion and domination stop. 

 

A four point bastion map even though Atlantic is a three point domination map

 

The bastion capture points have two buildings in every capture point. These buildings have an amount of hit points and do various functions. If a surveillance station is destroyed, it will give your team 20 tickets and take from the enemy 10 tickets. If a fortress is destroyed, your team earns 30 tickets and the enemy loses 15. If a capture point has been taken but is not occupied by an enemy vessel, firing on one of these buildings will reduce the progress of the capture. If both buildings can be destroyed in quick succession, there will be less than 20% capture progress remaining, making the point easy to take back for your team. 

 

If the capture point does have a ship in it, or if the building you fire on is currently healing, the point's capture status will not change. 

 

It is possible to completely uncap one of these points. You have to destroy both buildings in the span of 3 seconds from full health simultaneously. It's not easy, but it can be done. 

 

What Makes Bastion Special?

 

The bastion game mode has two buildings in each capture point.  Capturing a base causes the buildings at that base to work for the team they belong to. The first building is a surveillance station, the second is a fort. Capturing bases allows the fort to fire on enemy ships and allows the surveillance building to spot ships that otherwise couldn't be seen. These both will give your team the upper hand in a bastion match if you can control more points than your enemy. There are a few things that you will need to know about each of these two buildings. 

 

Surveillance Stations:

 

These surveillance stations are the ultimate snitch. It is completely impossible for anyone to ninja cap in Bastion mode because these stations see all

 

There isn't a whole lot to be said about these stations, their mechanics are very simple. 

 

The surveillance station spots enemy ships for your team. Contrary to popular belief, these buildings do not have radar. The surveillance station's spotting mechanics act like the ship mechanics, if it is within your surface detection range and has a line of sight, it can see you. If the station is destroyed, it will become non-operational and heals itself until reaching 9000hp. 

 

When one of these stations comes online, their maximum acquisition distance appears on your minimap as a dotted circle.

The farthest a surveillance station can see is shown by the dotted line (in this case, station 3)

 

 

The two numbers you need to remember for surveillance stations

 

• 15.1 km detection range by sea. These things are very easy to spot. Some battleships will have better concealment.
• 9000 hit points. This may not sound like a lot, but these stations are nearly impossible to hit. Their elevation makes it so that you have to aim above the station by an amount that depends on your guns and your distance in order to hit it and the building is easily smaller than a destroyer. But hit one with two battleship shells and it is gone.

 

 

 

Fortresses:

 

There is quite a bit more to discuss with these unique buildings.

 

16" shore guns. Known historically for their devastating power.

 

Fortresses are armed with three 16 inch by 50 calibers coastal artillery guns which will fire on anything within range. These weapons have a range of 13km and reload in 4 seconds, meaning a full volley from these batteries has superior dpm to an iowa class battleship. The turrets fire HE shells with a very good fire chance, most likely the 36% we see in the Iowa's shells. The HE max damadge is probably also the 5700 damage from Iowa. Their traverse rate is astronomically high as well. By positioning a clemson 90° off of a gun's idle position, I was able to get the gun to bear on the clemson 4 seconds after firing a shot to reveal myself. This gives an 8 second 180° traverse time. These guns will always be able to hold you in their sights and they will find you very quickly. One hit from this gun will reduce a destroyer to three quarter or even half health and will easily destroy every module on the ship.

 

Due to the turret configuration, though, these fortresses usually only can get two guns on any target, and sometimes only one. The only time they really ever get three is when the target is in the cap circle. They also will not engage multiple targets simultaneously. 

 

When a fortress is destroyed, it goes into a cooldown where it heals. The fortress will not operate again until it has reached 210000 hp. This takes something in the vicinity of 1 minute for it to do.

 

Unfortunately, they do not respond to focus fire commands, there is absolutely no way to control these guns. 

 

A fortress has four anti aircraft mounts. They seem to be 5" flak guns. I don't know much else about the turrets themselves, but I did do some testing on thier abilities. 

as if there are even carriers at high tiers

 

I did a flyover of a langley torpedo squadron. They died in 33 seconds.

1586*6=9516 hp    9516/33=288.36 dps   288.36*60=17,301 

My best guess is the four guns either do 17,500 dpm or 300 dps. These are obviously designed to compete with t10 aircraft. 

 

When a fortress comes online, its firing range appears on your minimap. 

 

Here you can observe a light blue firing ring centered at the south cap. This is the fortress range.  Notice how much larger it is than the 19.9km circle of the amagi

 

The middle cap firing range covers most of the map

 

The next thing to consider about these fortresses is that they cannot shoot over land obstructions. It is possible to hide from these guns, but it also means that some are strategically more valuable than others. You may have noticed that in the above image, fortress 2 has a much greater portion of the map to shoot at than the other two fortresses. This makes 2 by far the most valuable fortress on Atlantic, but rocks and obstructions combined with its max range creates safe areas where fortresses can not hit you.

 

An exact depiction of where the center fortress can engage

 

The firing arcs of the south fortress are not very useful compared to the center cap because they point away from the center of the map, though they are slightly stronger firing on the east side of the map. 

 

The firing arcs of the north fortress are so obstructed by rocks as to be entirely useless unless the enemy is within the capping circle. 

 

Finally, there are two quirks you need to know about with forts. The first is that there is simply no minimum firing range on those guns. The 16" guns will lower their muzzle velocity as your ship nears in order to guarantee you are always able to be hit. The second is that they have absolutely no acquisition ability. No matter how close you get to one of these forts, if there are no enemy ships spotting you and the surveillance station is dead, you will never be shot at by the fort. 

 

Here's your numbers to remember

 

• 10km surface detect. Yes, these have a lower detection range than the towers even though they are far bigger. The detection range of a fortress also does not go up when it fires its guns. They have a 10 km minimum invisifire range because of this.
• 210,000hp. These things are tough. Only a Yamato can kill one in two salvoes or less. Luckily, they are very easy to hit and a Yamato captain can easily kill one in two salvoes or less.
• 13km firing range. 
• 4 second reload. You're not going to be able to go bow-on then broadside between salvoes.
• 8 seconds clocked 180° traverse. I've seen these guns follow a high tier russian dd at 3km range. You will not win a turning war with them.
• aa in excess of 17,000 dpm or 300dps. 

 

 

How do you kill them?

 

The best way to kill one of these installations depends on your ship. Both HE and AP shells will do exactly 50% of their maximum damadge when they hit one of these buildings. These buildings cannot be lit on fire no matter how hard you try. 

 

Whichever of your two shell types has the higher alpha damadge is the one you should use for fortresses. They are easy to hit.

 

Your dispersion works against you with the Surveillance stations. You'll have to use HE for the splash damadge because they are hard to hit directly with AP.

 

Carriers: dive bombers do full damadge to fortresses and surveillance stations. Carriers are actually useful for once. 

 

Lexington with air supremacy manual drops on the fortress. The target is big enough that all 14 bombs land true.

 This is the single largest hit ever recorded in WOWS history. Equivalent to one-shotting two full health yamato and a clemson all in one salvo. I hit the base so hard that it completely uncapped the point too, meaning usn cv's have the ability to take a cap away from the enemy team. 

 

Secondary batteries can also engage the buildings. In an amagi with bft, aft, manual secondaries, and secondary battery 2, it takes 1:14 to destroy a fortress. It takes 1:30 for the amagi to destroy the fortress using its main battery. The time to kill the surveillance station is considerably longer because the dispersion of secondary's isn't very good. 

 

None of the damadge that you deal to one of these installations counts toward your damadge done in battle, but killing one of these stations does give a ribbon. 

 

Neutralizing a station gives you zero damadge done, but does yield the suppression ribbon

The Problem with Bastion

Here's the disappointing thing, though. The three fortress turrets aim about as well as your secondaries without any skills to buff them. While they can land about a hit every twenty seconds on a bb not trying to avoid them at about 10 km range, they will simply never hit a cruiser or a destroyer unless the driver is very unlucky. The dispersion on these guns is so hilariously bad that at 1 km in a clemson broadside to the fort and stationary, the shells were landing at most one ship length too short or too far and missed by even crazier amounts in leading the ship.

3km, sir? That's way more than we ever trained for.  

 

 

Conclusion

 

In the end, because the turrets are so incredibly weak, there is no difference between domination and bastion gameplay. The primary advantage of capping is still to build tickets to get a cap victory. The surveillance building, while useful, is very fragile and can be killed by most dd's trying to ninja a cap. Of course, the dd will still be spotted because it has to fire its guns to destroy the building. The forts are almost completely useless and end up mainly just being something pretty that may shoot at you, leaving much to be wanted from them. If they do hit you, they probably will set you on fire, which may burn a control party. Overall, don't expect to see anything different from the standard fare of domination mode. 

[Mezurashi]

Nice comprehensive guide. I can't wait for this game mode. 

[Fog_Battleship_Tosa]

Nice comprehensive guide. I can't wait for this game mode. 

 

The interesting thing (and I forgot to add it) is because shooting the buildings halts their tickets, a bb can contest a cap by shooting at it if it's empty. (doesn't really work well with smaller ships)

[Mezurashi]

 

The interesting thing (and I forgot to add it) is because shooting the buildings halts their tickets, a bb can contest a cap by shooting at it if it's empty. (doesn't really work well with smaller ships)

 

​Was this intended or maybe a bug?

[Fog_Battleship_Tosa]

 

​Was this intended or maybe a bug?

 

No. If a cap is empty and you wammy the fort with an amagi, the square turns into a diamond and loses about 40% of the capture progress. Then the base recaptures itself over a period of about one minute by using its own tickets as capture progress.

[QJW]

Very comprehensive guide, I only had time to skim through it as I am off to bed soon, but I will check it out tomorrow. PROPS M8!

[Personator]

Dispersion hilariously bad? Sounds like it's working as intended 

 

[Atomicfireball]

This is going to make things interesting. 

[Sinboto]

Dispersion hilariously bad? Sounds like it's working as intended 

 

It certainly does. 

[saagri]

I can't wait for this to come out so people can complain how bad the iowa is at hitting the surface targets,  

[khaenn35]

I will wait for the replay that shows a fort getting a Devastating Strike and a DD to be detonated. Because RNG is fabulous.

[saagri]

I will wait for the replay that shows a fort getting a Devastating Strike and a BB to be detonated. Because RNG is fabulous.

Fixed for more hilarity. 

[khaenn35]

Fixed for more hilarity. 

 

I will wait for the replay that shows a fort getting a Devastating Strike and a Yamato to be detonated. Because RNG is fabulous.

 

More Fixed for even MORE hilarity.

[saagri]

I will wait for the replay that shows a fort getting a Devastating Strike and a Midway to be detonated. Because RNG is fabulous.

 

Fixed again.

[Herr_Reitz]

It is a better choice to dumb down the fortress guns when implementing a new feature like this - quite sure it would be an easy thing to buff up quickly. In fact they could implement a sliding scale... the fewer ships in game the better the guns fire at their targets. This would increase the incentive to hold onto the points.

 

As to the merging of the boundary lines, sorry but that did not/does not happen in the t10 game I played. And from that match let me tell you the minimap display gets really, really busy, almost ugly. You cannot turn off the fortress/recon lines, nor can you color them any other color... nor can you request their coverage areas be a different background color. When all three are "on" the minimap really does get ugly; one might say it is too much information. 

 

It definitely adds something to the game but at his point its passive threat (recon) is the biggest plus it brings to the owner. And sadly I betcha folks will add this as another reason for the "DD to capture that d*** point now!" 

[Camping4XP]

 

Fixed again.

 

Midway? What's that? I have heard tales of such a thing.. but alas, rumors also have circulated that the beast has been driven to extinction

[saagri]

 

Midway? What's that? I have heard tales of such a thing.. but alas, rumors also have circulated that the beast has been driven to extinction

 

I saw quite a few of them yesterday, even a bit of 2v2 cv's. 

[Zampy]

I wonder how many dive bombers it'll take to destroy one of the buildings.  Probably about 4 squads, cause RNG.  Also, a question on HE vs AP.  I imagine AP has to hit the building directly, so that lends a question to how large the hitboxes for these are.  But for HE, does it consider splash radius?

[saagri]

I wonder how many dive bombers it'll take to destroy one of the buildings.  Probably about 4 squads, cause RNG.  Also, a question on HE vs AP.  I imagine AP has to hit the building directly, so that lends a question to how large the hitboxes for these are.  But for HE, does it consider splash radius?

 

And can buildings be set on fire?

[Fog_Battleship_Tosa]

I wonder how many dive bombers it'll take to destroy one of the buildings.  Probably about 4 squads, cause RNG.  Also, a question on HE vs AP.  I imagine AP has to hit the building directly, so that lends a question to how large the hitboxes for these are.  But for HE, does it consider splash radius?

 

 

And can buildings be set on fire?

 

 

Thank you for these suggestions. I'll do some research on this. I'll also check if the cap blocking works when a building is already destroyed. My intuition is that they cannot be lit on fire and they don't block when they are recovering health. 

 

EDIT: Is lexington good enough?

[saagri]

 

 

 

Thank you for these suggestions. I'll do some research on this. I'll also check if the cap blocking works when a building is already destroyed. My intuition is that they cannot be lit on fire and they don't block when they are recovering health. 

Also, can secondaries attack the targets? 

[khaenn35]

Also, can secondaries attack the targets? 

 

I dunno. I mean, the Alanta would have a field day if it got into a Bastion match...

*minigun firing noises and multiple explosions*

[Fog_Battleship_Tosa]

Also, can secondaries attack the targets? 

 

Maybe the fortress. By the time you're close enough to elevate those things to hit the surveillance building, you're already capping. 

added to the list

[Fog_Battleship_Tosa]

NOOOOO

 

what happened?

mods can undo edits, right?

[Fog_Battleship_Tosa]

I wonder how many dive bombers it'll take to destroy one of the buildings.  Probably about 4 squads, cause RNG.  

 

 

And can buildings be set on fire?

I used a lexington with the air supremacy skill. Man drop on the fortress.

 

it takes like 1 and a half db squads to kill this thing, and probably 1 squad for a midway. (US carriers are actually good at something, guys!)

 

did this for 20 minutes, never got a fire, but I consistently did damadge worth over 100K. 

 

I did a flyover of a langley torpedo squadron. They died in 33 seconds.

1586*6=9516 hp

9516/33=288.36 dps

288.36*60=17,301 

My best guess is the four guns either do 17,500 dpm or 300 dps.